Joking aside, it has to do with the thing that Scandinavians nurture to this day their Viking heritage more then any other Europeans theirs thus they are constantly making movies, cartoon and books about it and lately even music as Black/Death metal themed with Vikings. I mean, when was the last time you heard a German taking pride in their Vandals, most of the Germans today embrace Vikingism and are neglecting their Vandals who were extremely mighty and crushed Roman empire, and it ain't no different with our Slavic countries and Slavic tribes which when were migrating conquered half Europe and hold these lands to this day. We still do maintain the Slavic toponims for places, mountains, but when it comes to reviving any part of our Slavdom either with music, movies, literature, or most importantly everyday media it comes to zero and is totally neglected. That's the thing i really envy to Scandinavians, they have managed to mainstreamed(in a positive way) their heritage and every Scandinavian knows who are lets say Norse Gods from their Mythology or Vikings stories, while if i just go out this moment and ask a first person i come across who are the main Slavic Gods he wold stare at me like i asked him a about nuclear science, but if i'd ask about Lady Gaga's latest album i'd get my answer before i could say "cookie". However we can partially blame church for that since most Slavic nations today look upon themselves as Christians and not Slavs and feel totally alien to their heritage...as for the present day obsession of Americans with Vikings, it is rather ridiculous, most of Americans do not come by their heritage from Scandinavia but England(Anglo-saxons) and Germany(Lower-saxons a.k.a. Vandals) and other 50 European countries of which they are a mixture of but today they are all like "Vinland Strong, look at me Yankee doodle Viking rawr, Odin mit McDonalds" and acting like they are more Viking than the actual Scandinavians.

You summarized it briliantly, RW. Nothing to add.

I also think that just from creating so many movies with them or on them, sometimes even fusing them into cartoons and comics which are not cenetered around them, has helped "marketing" Viking as symbol, icon and mental image. I think also Romans and Greeks to some extent have some of this exposure, and even Celts to lesser extent.

But other tribes in Europe are not heard of. Viking metal is even celebrated in countries who have had nothing to do with vikings in past, let alone being Scandinavian in first place, such as this "Vikings" from:

When was last time you heard of Slavic heathenism being celebrated in metal outside of Slavic nations?

There you go. Marketing. And horned helmets.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bijeli Knez

Well all films come from America which was mostly protestant and germanic country.At least back then(now it is turning into sh*thole).So it is logical that they would use Vikings as pirates because they were much more connected to history of Western Europe than Slavs.I bet they considered Slavs to be less white than them back then.

But this doesn't mean that I want to disregard or disrespect Vikings and their heritage in any way.

Exactly, and Slavic countries don't really produce movies about our past because of stronger Christianity here where paganism is looked down on and not celebrated.

Only movie I know about ancient Slavic times is Polish movie "Stara Baśń" (Old Tale):

Joking aside, it has to do with the thing that Scandinavians nurture to this day their Viking heritage more then any other Europeans theirs thus they are constantly making movies, cartoon and books about it and lately even music as Black/Death metal themed with Vikings. I mean, when was the last time you heard a German taking pride in their Vandals, most of the Germans today embrace Vikingism and are neglecting their Vandals who were extremely mighty and crushed Roman empire, and it ain't no different with our Slavic countries and Slavic tribes which when were migrating conquered half Europe and hold these lands to this day. We still do maintain the Slavic toponims for places, mountains, but when it comes to reviving any part of our Slavdom either with music, movies, literature, or most importantly everyday media it comes to zero and is totally neglected. That's the thing i really envy to Scandinavians, they have managed to mainstreamed(in a positive way) their heritage and every Scandinavian knows who are lets say Norse Gods from their Mythology or Vikings stories, while if i just go out this moment and ask a first person i come across who are the main Slavic Gods he wold stare at me like i asked him a about nuclear science, but if i'd ask about Lady Gaga's latest album i'd get my answer before i could say "cookie". However we can partially blame church for that since most Slavic nations today look upon themselves as Christians and not Slavs and feel totally alien to their heritage...as for the present day obsession of Americans with Vikings, it is rather ridiculous, most of Americans do not come by their heritage from Scandinavia but England(Anglo-saxons) and Germany(Lower-saxons a.k.a. Vandals) and other 50 European countries of which they are a mixture of but today they are all like "Vinland Strong, look at me Yankee doodle Viking rawr, Odin mit McDonalds" and acting like they are more Viking than the actual Scandinavians.

"Don't get smart wiseguy, despite my name is Joe and I'm of german stock I can still mess you up with my superior viking skillz I've learned by listening to Manowar and reading sagas!

What hunny? Just shut up and give the damn kid a happymeal with fries!"

Nah, seriously, I think you have a good points.

Its sad that other whites can't find pride in their own history. Slavs for example have a sophisticated heathen past, yet so many don't seem to know about it.

South germanics (saxons, goths, etc.) also had a distinct belief system, like Odin was called Wotan, Thor was Donar and so on, but they always cling onto the norse heathen ways.

And while this offends many people, and has made me very unpopular, heathen beliefs are also tied with nationalism.

In Scandinavia, you often see norse God names being used to name streets and places, because it plays such a large part of our past.

And ofcourse I seem to be a selfish biggot for acting so snobby about it, but there are about 15-20 million people in Scandinavia, out of a European population of 700 million.

Our culture would quickly disapear if we didn't take pride in our old ways.

The past is the key for the future, as one in my kindred used to say.

And my comment about not wanting to be german is ofcourse not someone should take too seriously; its a fact that we Danes have been at war with them for about 2000 years, and they stole much of our land not too many years ago in an unfair war, so ofcourse I wouldn't want to be german

Well actually Arkona has quite of an wide audience around metal world, it has quite a fan base in Scandinavia as in every other Slavic country or else however the ironic thing is that most foreigners see Arkona as a Viking themed metal band and not a Slavic one, but that comes because of similarities between Slavic and Germanic pagan cultures and looks of people as well...so it's kind of a problem to develop Slavic themed metal as a brand at this point with so popular Viking metal by the side, because Slavic metal band = Viking/Germanic metal band in all aspects, only names of Gods differ so it's hard that we could see a Slavic metal as some distinctive brand. I am more prone of placing Norwegian/Sweedish/Danish metal, Finnish metal, German metal and Slavic metal into a same bracket because of a great similarity of them between each other.

I mean, what i am talking about is this:

Slavic warrior:

Viking warrior:

Slavic God, Svarog:

Viking God, Odin:

Yeah, almost the same, that's why we have a problem. Their Vikingism is already so famous that it's practically a problem to brand our Slavic culture as a new brand or separate line in metal world because everyone outside Europe and even inside it will just add our Slavic metal bands to theirs more famous Vikings themed bands and look upon them as similar or same or whatever...yeah, sucks...

Well actually Arkona has quite of an wide audience around metal world, it has quite a fan base in Scandinavia as in every other Slavic country or else however the ironic thing is that most foreigners see Arkona as a Viking themed metal band and not a Slavic one, but that comes because of similarities between Slavic and Germanic pagan cultures and looks of people as well...so it's kind of a problem to develop Slavic themed metal as a brand at this point with so popular Viking metal by the side, because Slavic metal band = Viking/Germanic metal band in all aspects, only names of Gods differ so it's hard that we could see a Slavic metal as some distinctive brand. I am more prone of placing Norwegian/Sweedish/Danish metal, Finnish metal, German metal and Slavic metal into a same bracket because of a great similarity of them between each other.

I mean, what i am talking about is this:

Slavic warrior:

Viking warrior:

Slavic God, Svarog:

Viking God, Odin:

Yeah, almost the same, that's why we have a problem. Their Vikingism is already so famous that it's practically a problem to brand our Slavic culture as a new brand or separate line in metal world because everyone outside Europe and even inside it will just add our Slavic metal bands to theirs more famous Vikings themed bands and look upon them as similar or same or whatever...yeah, sucks...

I noticed that too. Everywhere it seems Slavic, Finnic, Celtic, Baltic and other Germanic metal bands are always put in Folk/Viking category.

Perhaps they should give it new name like Heathen Metal, maybe Northern Metal. Pagan Metal just sounds cheezy and I can see lots of goth idiots who think they are pagan hijacking reputation of proper bands.

Another thing, are there any bands from Italy, Greece etc. celebrating ancient Roman and Greek mythology? Because I have only seen ones that do whole Norse/Viking thing.

I noticed that too. Everywhere it seems Slavic, Finnic, Celtic, Baltic and other Germanic metal bands are always put in Folk/Viking category.

Perhaps they should give it new name like Heathen Metal, maybe Northern Metal. Pagan Metal just sounds cheezy and I can see lots of goth idiots who think they are pagan hijacking reputation of proper bands.

Another thing, are there any bands from Italy, Greece etc. celebrating ancient Roman and Greek mythology? Because I have only seen ones that do whole Norse/Viking thing.